


Four Hours for Bridge Four

by ettagrace



Category: Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Bridge Four - Freeform, Bridge Four Work Songs, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Way of Kings, bridge four being a family, sea shanty inspired
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29125461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ettagrace/pseuds/ettagrace
Summary: A collection of one-shots retelling the events of Way of Kings from the POV of Bridge Four: Rock, Teft, Hobber, Moash, Lopen, Kaladin. Each one-shot is accompanied by a stanza from a bridge-crew work song, inspired by the shanty "Four Hours" from The Longest Johns. Rated for canon-typical violence.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 28





	1. Rock

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by ["Four Hours"](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/753015) by The Longest Johns. 



> A/N: Standard Disclaimer that I do not own The Stormlight Archive or any of the characters in this story, all credit goes to the incredible Brandon Sanderson. The melody and rhythm for the work song in this story are inspired by the sea shanty "Four Hours" as covered by The Longest Johns. I rewrote the lyrics to fit Bridge Four's story, and I recommend listening to the song before reading! Thank you for spending your time on this. I hope you enjoy!

_Come me boys and heave with me_   
_Forever bridgemen will we be_   
_Never to see our children and wives_   
_Nor escape the plains with our lives_

Numuhukumakiaki'aialunamor braced his shoulders against the struts, braced his feet against the rocky ground, and braced himself for the archers lining up ahead of them. Brightlord Sadeas would send no word to his family, but he hoped they would somehow know, and mourn for him—their son, brother, husband, father. He accepted it. He stood at the front of the bridge. He would die.

"You're in my spot, Rock."

Everything changed with those four words. Too shocked at first to respond, he moved to make room for the madman with an apathetic shrug. They charged. The bridge shuddered and jolted as men dropped. He blindly tripped over bodies. The weight bore down on him, but he dragged himself forward with the momentum of the leader. What else could he do?

They stumbled to a stop. Heaved. The bridge landed with a crash. He bolted for shelter before more arrows could find him. There, a cleft in the plateau. Others had the same idea and followed him, scurrying into his hiding place like cremlings fleeing a boot. Curiosity, more than care, forced him to look back.

There was Kaladin, kneeling at the front of the bridge, still alive, eyes wild, his side staining red. The madman bolted to someone laying flat on the ground with an arrow through the leg. He scooped his arms under the wounded man and dragged them both to the hollow. Despite his shock, Rock moved to catch the man as Kaladin shoved him into the hiding place. The youth spun and sprinted onto the battlefield. Another injured person retrieved. Kaladin turned again. How many had they lost? Would the lowlander try to save them all?! Impossible.

Rock stared in disbelief as Kaladin stumbled with the third fallen bridgeman. Exhaustion would kill him if the arrows didn't. Rock owed the wounded nothing. But their leader _lead_ the bridge. Who else accepted that risk? That _mafah'liki_ flitted around his head. Rock owed Kaladin his life. Reluctantly, he pulled himself out of the hollow. The others didn't protest and didn't follow. Rock hurried across the field, ducking to make a smaller target of himself, and lifted the wounded bridgeman to his shoulder. An arrow whizzed past his ear.

"Airsick lowlander," he growled. "Crazy." But he returned the man to the crater anyhow.

When their leader collapsed into the hollow, Rock noticed the tears of frustration. He didn't remember the last time he'd _noticed_ things.

"Four more," Kaladin made out between gasps, "I have to…"

An older bridgeman that Rock recognized as the one running next to him in the back spoke up, naming the others who remained on the field. Kaladin grimaced at his own wound as he tried to stand again. They knew he could save no more on his own. Rock owed the wounded nothing. He owed everything to Kaladin.

"Idiot. Stay here. Is alright. I will do this thing." The words surprised him, but they sounded right. "Guess I'm an idiot too." He muttered and hauled himself out of the hollow again.

The older bridgeman followed behind him, pointing out the next target. Arrow volleys stopped as the army met the Parshendi, but they didn't stop to watch the battle. The first ones they found lay motionless, but the last still spasmed. Together they dragged the wounded one back to the hollow. Someone had started a fire. Another was holding a knife. Kaladin wrapped bandages around the gaping wound—where in damnation had he got those? He muttered under his breath as he healed, pleading for survival. When he finished his work and collapsed, it was the older one who moved to his side with a waterskin.

Awe and helplessness warred in Rock's mind. This man, he tried so hard. This kindness could move the peaks themselves if it found a fulcrum. But here?

"This thing, it will do no good. Gaz will not let us bring the wounded back," he said, hating the words even as he spoke them. He wanted desperately to cling to the hope that this helped. No. He traveled to the shattered plains on a futile hope and look where that'd got him.

"I'll take care of Gaz," was all Kaladin answered.

And somehow, he did.

Though he paid his debt, he followed Kaladin's lead after that. Before, it was an obligation, but now, he wanted to help. The _mafah'liki_ , he came to decide, marked him for greatness. Kaladin need rations and spheres? He grumbled, but he shared. His old self showed itself again, eating away at the hollow shell he'd become. Shame that he couldn't make proper Horneater food, but he more than anyone knew the importance of meals with friends. He did not complain over stone-gathering duty. He did not protest when the odd _mafah'liki_ led him to chull dung. Perhaps it knew of his past errors and meant to teach him a lesson. He did not protest staying up late to harvest the sap. In fact, he enjoyed that night. He hadn't intended to share his past, but when Kaladin asked, he answered. There was a strange comfort in reliving the tragedy through a story. When he shared his true name, he remembered his fondness for the familiar rhymes. The poems came naturally after that. He recited them under his breath as he worked to remember the names of his wife and children.

His mood was as foul as any other's the day their assignment changed to chasm duty. Kaladin's scowl was as dark as the bottom of the pit where they searched, and Teft's disagreeable gibes about his homeland needled him. When Kaladin pointed out the gaff, he only half-joked in challenging the lowlander to a duel in the _alil'tiki'I_ fashion. The work stank, but he determined to laugh for their sake anyhow. He tried to hide his surprise when Dunny answered Kaladin's bait into the conversation, but smiled, still more shocked and pleased when it turned out the lad could sing. The chasm's gloom didn't choke so close after that. He sang when he cooked. When they trained, he caught himself stringing together poetic insults at Gaz to the beat of their movements. Did the bridge weigh less today? The next verse spoke of his family, the one he would never see again, and the one heaving alongside him.

_Four hours / Carryin' our load_   
_Four hours / Sloggin' in the rain_   
_Four hours / No, we won't be bowed_   
_Then, four hours / 'til it starts again_


	2. Teft

_Come me boys and heave with me  
The wind’s my friend and my enemy  
The Stormfather cannot be tamed  
Kaladin hung for the brightlord’s gain_

Moash’s mocking rang in Teft’s ears as Kaladin danced with the wind. The spear spun and slashed with an agility he’d never seen before, not even back in his military days. And that windspren—but no, it was not just a windspren - did it laugh? Teft’s muscles twitched with the old memories at each strike, pushing him to join the boy. Thrust, slash. Jab, jab, block. Turn, sweep. Jab. Kaladin smiled slightly - a tiny genuine grin, not one of those grimaces he put on when he made a grim joke, trying to cheer up the others. The wood slapped his arms as he flipped it up, back, around. Teft couldn’t help himself, he too smiled watching the kata.

All too soon, the spear stopped flashing. Kaladin stood panting. A stunned plop came from his side as Moash dropped a handful of spheres into a puddle. The _soldier_ opened his eyes, blinked once as he came to his senses, and dropped the spear like it was a red-hot poker. Teft squinted at their squad leader—no, bridge leader—and wondered. He gave an awkward order to continue searching, and flushing, hurried over to Teft. The surrounding light faded as if a cloud passed overhead.

“Kaladin, lad. That was…”

“It was meaningless,” Kaladin said. “Just a kata. Meant to work the muscles, and make you practice the basic jabs, thrusts, and sweeps. It’s a lot showier than it is useful.”

“But-” Teft couldn’t believe his ears. Surely the lad didn’t actually believe what he was saying?

Kaladin’s words came quick and breathless. “No, really,” he continued. Making _excuses_. “Can you imagine a man swinging a spear around his neck like that in combat? He’d be gutted in a second.”

“Lad,” Teft said. “I’ve _seen_ katas before. But never one like that.” He’d seen a lot of katas. He’d done a lot of katas. Never could remember every step. Once you got into the more difficult ones, they shared moves and he’d get all mixed up, even though his technique wasn’t half bad. “The speed, the grace… And there was some sort of spren zipping around you, between your sweeps, glowing with a pale light. It was beautiful.”

Rock started. “You could see that?” Apparently, he’d been able to see it for a while now. Teft thought he was just as crazy as Kaladin before. But now?

“Sure,” he said. “Never seen a spren like that. Ask the other men—I saw a few of them pointing.”

Kaladin glanced at his shoulder and frowned. Teft guessed that whatever spren had appeared during the kata still hung around him, invisible now to everyone but the two men standing beside him. He felt a bit cheated at that.

“It was nothing,” Kaladin repeated.

“No,” Rock said. “That it was certainly not. Perhaps _you_ should challenge Shardbearer. You could become brightlord!”

“I _don’t_ want to be a brightlord,” Kaladin snapped, clearly shaken by the suggestion. He turned away from them. “Besides, I tried that once. Where’s Dunny?”

“Wait! You-“ What kind of _madman_?

“Where’s Dunny?” Kaladin repeated.

There was the end of that conversation. He closed his mouth and gave the stubborn bridgeman a sullen stare. Teft knew something was strange about this young man, and knew he would never hear another word about his past either, but that didn’t stop the questions from forming in the back of his mind. Which army did Kaladin belong to before he got those slave brands, and why in Kelek’s name would they throw away such a brilliant spearman and leader? Who did he threaten? Why did he fight like _that_?

Kaladin earned his trust, his name, his spheres, his time, and his alliance. Teft needed to help, no matter how much he denied his nature, and feared destroying it all in the end. He wanted, without realizing it, to be a part of whatever Kaladin was doing more than he needed to breathe. Even though he didn’t join in, he even grew to enjoy Rock’s infernal singing that always got stuck in his head. Hearing the chants helped remind him to live. Kaladin proved himself over and over again, with no one asking him to do the things he did, and Teft would give his life to protect what they together had created. With that kata came a sense of anticipation and confidence, even if Kaladin wouldn’t admit it.

The doubts came, too. The ghosts of his past screamed a warning and a hope.

The side-carry saved and damned them. Teft would never forget the moment of elation and relief that jolted through his body when they set their bridge and scattered. Not a man dead! Not a man wounded! Their training paid off! Thanks to Kaladin’s genius they were not bowed down and –

All wrong.

Chaos reigned around them, and in the middle of it stood their captain, looking on the destruction his plan wrought on the faltering army. Teft dragged him back to the hollow, to temporary safety, but he could not tear his eyes from the battlefield. The horror knotted in his stomach, his hopes sunk, it felt like he was falling. No. _no_. Kaladin saw it too. When Gaz and Lamaril came for them…

It all fell apart.

Even as their bridge-leader hangs upside-down, even as the poor, foolish, brave boy promises to survive, Teft choked back tears and smashed down the part of him that knew Kaladin is—no, can’t think about that. The wind that spun spirals around their leader when he did kata now drove slashing winds. The wind that cooled them when he ran at the front of the bridge would rip his friend—yes, his _friend -_ to shreds. Inside the barrack was dark, and cold, and still. Crashes rattled the roof, and he feared it was the sound of Kaladin’s lifeless body–no, not yet, he storming _promised_ \- being tossed and slammed against the shingles.

He dreaded leaving the barracks when the storm is over but dragged himself from his mat, just like every morning when Kaladin dragged them from their stupor to practice drills like the side carry. Teft groaned and shook his head and blinked against the bright light as he rounded the corner and..

A promise broken. Their last hope dashed. Another person he loved, gone to those fool ideas.-

Kaladin opened his eyes. A dun sphere dropped out of his hand.

A promise kept. One last hope returned. Ideas too dangerous to speak aloud, but ones he knew somehow were true all along.

He storming _knew_.

Teft spent the next week scrounging for every last lit sphere he could get his hands on and sitting beside Kaladin for hours on end. He couldn’t see the spren but he could feel its presence every time a sphere lost its stormlight. When Kaladin finally woke up, in record time? Teft refused to think about those implications in the warcamp. Whatever his ability might mean for the world, whatever else might be coming, it didn’t matter in this moment.

Kaladin lived. Now _that_ was a good reason to sing.

_Four hours / Carryin’ our load  
Four hours / Sloggin’ in the rain  
Four hours / No, we won’t be bowed  
Then, four hours / ‘til it starts again_


	3. Hobber

_Come me boys and heave with me  
Got scabrous hands and bloody knees  
With knobweed sap, we’ll stave off woe  
Hands will callous and our strength will grow_

While other bridgemen’s backs bent and buckled under the weight of their burden, Hobber stood straight. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine that the timbers digging into the flesh of his shoulder were the trusses for a new barn. If he blocked out the sounds of battle, he could almost imagine that he pushed a plow across the barren soil of a field rather than a bridge across a chasm. If he forgot the shattered plains, he could almost imagine that the reason his legs ached was because he’d just finished running after an escaped axe-hound, and not running miles across this almighty-forsaken land. If he only wished hard enough, he could almost imagine that the battle horns were the striding sound of the evening horn in his hometown, calling the end of the day’s labor.

But no matter how much he imagined, with every step further into the barren wastes, he knew he would never return to his home. His farmhouse and fields lay a thousand leagues away, burnt to the ground by Sadeas’s army in a border dispute, and he’d only been one of dozens taken as prisoners. He didn’t know where the others were now. Probably amongst the other bridge crews if they hadn’t died on the way here. Good for them. He collapsed to the ground, at the edge of the plateau, too exhausted to care.

The horns called for the next rotation all too soon, and he hauled the bridge back across the cavern. This would be the last one before the assault. He stood near the front of the bridge, only one row back and to the left side. The archers lined up, took aim. The sun hovered over the horizon, a blurry yellow disk. He fixed his eyes on its light, too resigned to scream in terror, and charged.

Pain shot through his leg and he stumbled, rolled, nearly trampled under the other’s feet. It was all he could do–curl up and moan. Why couldn’t it have hit him in the chest and let him be over with this damned existence? He longed for the peace of the Tranquiline halls where he could farm once again, unhindered by his fresh injury. Better a field well sown than a field steeped in blood–as his mother always said. That always annoyed his father. Where had she learned that? Some old storybook, maybe. What would she think of him now, bleeding out slowly on a shattered field that would never see cultivation again? When she’d died, she’d asked him to look after their little homestead. He mumbled an “I’m sorry.”

He screamed when someone grabbed him under the arms and started dragging him, but he was too weak to thrash and escape. Only when the man dropped him again was Hobber able to get a good look at his face. It was their bridge leader, pulling him to the relative safety of a hollow. Another bridgeman–the redheaded one who’d gone to the back–caught his limp body and gently lowered him to the ground. His rescuer disappeared, and not long after, another body dropped into the hollow. Even though his own leg throbbed, he could tell this other man was much worse, nearly dead. Hobber could only watch in shock. His mind was too numb with fear and pain to question any of this. The others stood in stunned silence but jumped into action when the bridge-leader reappeared, shouting orders. Who was he? He’d told Hobber his name just last night… Kaladin. There, someone said it.

_Life before Death._

The next few hours passed in a blur as Kaladin bound his wounds, strapped him to the back of the bridge, then carried him back to his mat in the barracks. The next few days passed at a drag. Unable to join the others in their duty, he was resigned to wait with Dabbid in the dark barracks for hours on end. The other injured man wasn’t much for conversation, and he found wondering while he waited. He heard the mutterings of Moash and the others–cursing Kaladin for his pride, for the extra training they never actually did, for the harder work. He heard Teft discussing strategy with their bridgeleader. He heard Rock’s booming laughter as the horneater handed him half of the evening meal. And Hobber heard Kaladin’s unwavering response every time he asked, “Why?”

Why did he rescue injured from the battlefield? Why did he spend his last spheres to buy bandages? Why did he labor over the knobweed sap? Why the campfires and stew? Why not let them die?

“You’re my men.” Kaladin said it with a shrug, as if it were the clearest thing in the world. When Hobber met his dark eyes, they were filled with an intensity of a man who’d challenged darkness itself to a staring contest, and made the void blink first.

_Strength before Weakness._

Eventually, Kaladin saw Hobber fit enough to walk again. As eager as he was to be out of the barracks, every step was agony. On his first day being up and moving, he barely made it to the door without falling over, even with his arm around Lopen’s shoulder. He grabbed the doorframe and sunk to the step with a groan.

“I can’t.”

“You _will._ ” Kaladin hauled him to his feet again. “If you don’t start moving your leg, it’ll heal so stiff you won’t ever be able to walk. You’ve rested enough for the danger of reopening to pass. Now the sooner you’re back on your feet, the better.”

“That’s right! Up you go!” Lopen added cheerfully.

The surgeon’s son didn’t try to guilt trip him into walking again because he needed another man on the bridge. He pushed him because it was the right thing to do. Hobber muttered curses as he took another step. He would endure the pain for Kaladin’s sake. He readjusted his grip on Lopen’s shoulder’s and tried again. His leg shook uncontrollably every time he put weight on it, but balanced by his friends, he stood on his own. Slowly but surely, he limped a full lap around the barracks before he had to rest again. Lopen gave him a congratulatory slap on the back, and they sat down on the doorstep to watch the team practice laps around the lumberyard with their bridge.

As he recovered, he learned. He could help Rock cook dinner each night, and they talked together about foods from their homes, what they would farm if they had the choice, and joked over the best use for chull shells. He eventually grew strong enough to carry water with Lopen on runs and worked alongside Kaladin to heal their injured members after every assault. They sang together around the fire, and he taught the others the work songs from his hometown, adding to the collection they used for the daily duties. Just like Kaladin, his hands grew callouses but his heart did not. Even after his leg healed, he still remembered the pain each time a high storm blew over the camp, and determined to take it as a badge of honor, rather than as the mark of a victim.

When he grew strong enough to carry the bridge again, his back did not bend under the weight of its burden. None of them did.

_Four hours / Carryin’ our load  
Four hours / Sloggin’ in the rain  
Four hours / No, we won’t be bowed  
Then, four hours / ‘til it starts again_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like this chapter! I had fun coming up with a backstory for Hobber, since he doesn't properly have one in canon (as far as I've read at least), and differentiating his voice from the others. Let me know what you think! I've got the next three chapters half written so hopefully those updates will come a little faster than this one did.


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